Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie by James Lee Burke

 

After the quick DNF last night, I went with something that seemed really unlikely to repeat that experience. This is James Lee Burke at his typically excellent. He's been writing stories about the Holland family for years, all kinds of out of chronological order, I think; this one falls during the 1910s, and has all kinds of interesting things to say about the, uh, "shrinking" of the American West, and the various long-lasting aftereffects of the Civil War even as they bleed into the aftereffects of World War I (and to a lesser extent the Great Flu). Unlike many of Burke's novels, the POV is a woman--and a youngish woman, fourteen at the novel's beginning; like many of Burke's novels, there is some intense and brutal violence, some masterful turns of phrase, and some untrustworthy people in authority. Burke's novels are practically always worth reading, and this is no exception.